Lange's Ranch pool owner tries for reopening ... again

KEYPORT — They're going to have to install a stoplight on South Keyport Road for all the traffic going in and out of Lange's Ranch Park. Maybe.

The temperature is rising, which means Juel Lange is in the throes of his annual showdown with authorities over the legality of his outdoor public pool and snack shack.

He's defiantly vowed to reopen Friday.

Lange closed his long-running pool and snack shack, along with an adjacent events pavilion, in 2004, citing regulations. Each year since, he's had work done to get closer to requirements, but has fallen short of reopening.

This year, he might pull it off.

"We are very close," said Keith Grellner, environmental health director with the Kitsap Public Health District.

Which leaves a long line of beleaguered inspectors hastily coming and going at Lange's Ranch Park.

Jeff Rowe, deputy director of Kitsap County Department of Community Development, sped out first thing Thursday, went down his checklist, and gave Lange a green light. Officials from the health district were due Friday morning to make sure that his pool drain is legal and that in the snack shack the refrigerators are on and the hot water is running.

If they sign off — along with the state Department of Health pool people in Olympia waiting by the phone — it could happen.

Meanwhile Thursday, Lange, 85, was heading out to buy goodies for the snack shack. He was wringing his hands about whether his hired help managed to get her food-handler's permit.

"Well, it's coming to a climax, and it scares me a little," said Lange, holding fast to his opinion that overregulation and high fees are no less than "extortion."

"If I had recognized what the end costs were going to be at the beginning of this project, the pool would have been filled in with dirt and the rest of the park let go to weeds."

Grellner said health officials are bending over backward to accommodate Lange.

"And Mr. Lange generally doesn't acknowledge that."

The biggest issue is the pool drain. In 2007, federal safety rules were toughened after the 7-year-old granddaughter of former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker drowned. She was playing in a hot tub when a powerful drain sucked her under.

"It's been approved," Lange said of work on his drain.

As for the hot water and refrigerators, "It's on now," he said.

Lange has agreed to have a lifeguard, as well.

Whether he opens or not, the long-running soap opera between Lange and authorities will play on.

Lange feels he's the victim, "trudging through the swamp" of overzealous regulators and their rules.

The authorities will thump the rule book, because otherwise, "the public would not be safe. Every other pool in the county that's open and every other restaurant in the county have complied with these same rules," Grellner said.